Editor’s Letter You may have noticed that when we shoot architecture, from private houses to grand public buildings, we generally try and keep pesky people out of the picture. However well-dressed or easy on the eye, they just distract and get in the way. We like the way things look pre-population, but that does deny an obvious truth. Architecture has to work for the people who live or work in it.

In this issue, writer Ellen Himelfarb visits the Bijlmermeer, a massive housing project in south-east Amsterdam which celebrates its 50th birthday this year. It was built in concrete with utopian underpinnings but too little money. There were some bad ideas. It was criss-crossed by high-flying highways and walking or finding anywhere was a nightmare. Promises were not kept, gardens were abandoned, playgrounds and shops never appeared. And the Bijlmer quickly became a byword for drugs, destitution and the essential arrogance of urban planning. Now, a mix of sensitive architectural renewal, some judicious demolition, outside interventions (the arrival of a contemporary art museum) and more organic, tenant-led innovations (a food market among them) have revived the Bijlmer’s fortunes. People, all sorts of people, want to live there.

It’s also our Entertaining Special, expect a sinful spread of naughty treats and fruity goodness from crazy cocktails to icy puds. We preview Design Miami where Sabine Marcelis is set to make a splash for Fendi, and artist Katharina Grosse turns her spray gun on everything from soil to Styrofoam in a Shanghai museum. Let us entertain you.Nick Compton, Acting Editor

One of Marcelis’ ten fountains for Fendi. Titled Intarsi, it comprises three coloured resin cubes stacked asymmetrically. Marcelis is testing one of her creations, which features the artist’s trademark play on optical effects and chromatic shades. Photography: Qiu Yang

Artist Katharina Grosse on turning her spray gun on everything from soil and Styrofoam and, next up, five rooms of a Shanghai museum

Grosse surrounded by works in progress at her Berlin studio, designed by local firm Augustin und Frank Architekten, its white walls are protected by sheets of plastic that bear the tecnicolour traces of previous works. Photography: Roman Goebel

Amsterdam’s brutalist Bijlmermeer district celebrates its 50th anniversary with a new-found creative identity

The Bijlmermeer Estate seen from the Kleiburg block, looking across the tennis courts to the Kruitberg and Kikkenstein blocks, cutting through the estate is a raised metro line, built in the 1970s to connect it with central Amsterdam. Photography: Gilleam Trapenberg

Branching out by Lake Zurich with this curvaceous family home

This family house, on the edge of Lake Zurich, features an undulating roof and a spruce facade, and wraps around a large plane tree, just visible above the roof. Photography: Lukas Wassmann